Exercise is Healthy: A Philosophical Question
We have all been indoctrinated by the view that exercise is healthy for you. In fact to the extent that we glibly say ‘any exercise is healthy for you’.
Under this doctrine my Lion and Springbok exercise program is also heathy for you.
Lets consider this believe in the health aspect of exercise.
It is certainly not based on any evidence that people who exercise live longer than those that do not.
When one read about the lifestyles of people that are more than 100 years old one find mostly that they are farmers from Russia or other people that have never jogged in their lives. Similarly communities that have been identified as having people that live to older ages than other communities are never communities that would have jogged or exercised as their life style.
In fact, if one goes back and look at people that were great sport heroes in their time (which would imply that they are fit and therefore healthy) one finds no evidence that they lived longer than their counter parts who did not exercise.
Part of the problem is that jogging and other exercise only became fashionable since the mid 50’s. So that people who were born then, and might have been exercising as a routine to become healthy are now only about 50 years old. So there is not yet a generation of people that can be used to demonstrate that the joggers live longer than the couch potatoes.
Kenyans dominate the Olympic long distance races. Obviously they have to be a great jogging nation. Their life expectancy (see the CIA website) is 58 years, compared to the Americans at 78. The difference is not that Kenyans jog more, or Americans eat healthier food (they don’t), but the state of health care in the two countries.
So, if longevity is not a benefit of exercise that one can prove then one has to ask what is the evidence that exercise is a healthy option? (Which the presence of surgeons at the Sport and Science institute belies – see my first post).
Largely the evidence flouted is that lots of exercise will lead to a slower pulse, and that your blood pressure will be more ‘normal’, and your lung-capacity will be more. These all sound good, until one thinks about it.
It is notable that these are the three things that one can easily measure about your body.
Not jogging does not mean your heart rate increases to dangerous levels, just that it might if you suddenly do start to run. People with low heart rates will not necessary live longer than those with a faster heart beat.
People with huge lung capacity also get lung cancer, its just that afterwards their lung capacity declines.
Blood pressure has a lot more to do with stress, than what it has to do with exercise. Joggers tend to be ‘up tight’ people and probably more prone to high blood pressure problems in their daily lives than non-joggers.
So one has a philosophical problem: the three easily measured things of the human body are not demonstrated as leading to a longer life, and whilst it is true that if one of them goes out of kilter one is unhealthy, there is no evidence that these are out of kilter due to a lack of jogging.
Wally Hayward is still going strong at age 100, but several springbok rugby players have had a by-pass at age 45. Individual examples do not make a statistical argument.
It is true that people are now more health conscious and jog more than they did 100 years ago. It is also true that they now live longer than what they did 100 years ago. This is, however, a spurious correlation. People live longer due to advances in medicine. In very developed countries like the USA, where more people jog than in any other country, and where people live longer than before, the biggest problem is due to the poor diets resulting from modern processed food. Yet, despite this they live longer than before.
A major reason cited for people living longer is that their work environment has changed from doing long hours of menial work outdoors to much shorter, less strenuous work, and more time to relax and less stress. The pro-jogging lobby would like to see us go backward in time by replacing these hours we now have to relax with strenuous exercise outdoors.
Not content with just changing our lifestyle they would prefer us to worrying about the types of food we eat, what we drink, whether we smoke, and anything else that is pleasurable and not stressful. They do this while they get high on their internally generated drug, which is still legal, and which they have no intention of banning.
What is undisputable is that joggers have less resistance to most diseases. Next season change when the next virus from Asia hits your office watch who are the people that succumb first, and who succumbs most: the joggers.
Doctors warn joggers to stop jogging when they feel the least bit ill because of the danger that the virus will attack the heart muscle of people doing exercise. One would have thought that if exercise strengthens the heart then their muscles will be the least to succumb to the virus.
So, the question of whether jogging, or cycling, or swimming, is good for your health is totally dependent on how you define health. If your definition of health has to do with heart rate, blood pressure and lung capacity then you will have a nice chicken and egg argument proving jogging is good for you. If your definition of health includes saying: healthy is when you are not sick, then the evidence is against jogging as being healthy.
In the modern anti-smoking environment it is always educational to watch all the smokers (who tend to be drinkers) stand outside braving the cold and rain, while the joggers are not inside the building working, but sick at home.
The final word on whether exercise is healthy has to come from the joggers themselves. Every jogger will tell you that they jog because it makes them feel good. Well that is what every smoker of dagga, user of heroin, and other drugs will tell you. “I do it because it makes me feel good”.
So maybe we should not be asking the heroin junkies why they do it.
The second reason they mention is that jogging makes them feel healthier. Implied in this is that they feel healthier than me, because I do not jog. Great stuff, but how do they know how healthy I feel? There is a great arrogance in believing you ‘feel’ better than what I ‘feel’.
This belief that they feel better than me is supported by a whole shelf full of magazines and books about jogging, exercise and diets which all supports the view that I do not feel healthy. Then there are the two minute infomercials on television that tells them that they will feel better if they buy the equipment that is advertised. Obviously there comes a time when anyone will believe that so many people can’t be wrong as long as you ignore that they make money out of propounding what is possibly a myth. No-one has even set out to prove that there is a correlation between IQ and jogging.
From an employers perspective joggers are seldom good workers. They get flu when there is some to be got. They leave early so they can jog, or they arrive late because they had to jog. When there is a marathon coming up they have to work their way up to a peak, so things just get worse. Then they have to recover. Much rather employ golfers.
Possibly the most dangerous sport is boxing due to the blows that the brain receive. The human body is not built to travel faster than 12km per hour, nor is it built for the head to be knocked about by punches, nor is it built for the continuous jarring and shocks that jogging provide, for hours at a time every day. This continuous jarring occurs because the knees, ankles and hips are not designed to absorb such shocks. Obviously this translates into physical changes occurring to the protection mechanism of the brain the protective sheet around the brain grows thicker (like a callous) and ultimately is the reason why joggers appear and act like brain dead people who cannot wait for their next heroin fix.
(I have to admit that I made up this bit about the brain damage, but it sounds good)
This is the second basic tenet of the Lion and Springbok Exercise Program: remember that nature works on a ‘use it, or lose it’ principle and this is true for your brain.
Joggers lose it because jogging is designed to not use it (the brain I mean). When a jogger takes on ‘the posture’ the second thing they do is to switch of their brains before they put their feet into motion. The whole idea of being a successful jogger is to not think while you jog. Do not be aware of the environment, other joggers, or even the pain in your body. Just run in a daze until the heroin comes in.
Next time you watch a group of joggers on television, or on the road, take note that they are not socially chatting while they jog. They are totally anti-social. No-one says: ‘Look at that beautiful bird sitting on that beautiful branch over there. Did you know it is a …’. They do not even ask: “So how are your children these days?..”. There is no use of their brain while they jog (other than the occasional glance at their watch, and even this is specially designed to have a stop-watch feature telling them how far they have run so that they do not have to do complex mathematical calculations.)
But, besides this not using of the brain while they jog, it is being pounded – literally on the ground. So joggers will lose it even faster.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Exercise 3 - Start NOW
Exercise 3 - When to Start
Most exercise programs suggest that the best time to start is “NOW”. Unfortunately what they omit to mention is that generally before you can start you need to do one of the following:
Most exercise programs suggest that the best time to start is “NOW”. Unfortunately what they omit to mention is that generally before you can start you need to do one of the following:
Wait until you have time and money to join a gym,
Wait until you have time and money to buy the required shoes,
Wait until you have time and money to buy the right (their) equipment,
Wait until the next morning because you first have to read the book to know what to do.
Etc.
All of these reasons to delay starting the program is often the reason that most people just read the book and the next morning (wisely) decide they don’t feel like making the effort.
My exercise program has the advantage that you can start it NOW. As you are reading this sentence you are probably already following my program, all you will need to do is to continue doing what you are doing now.
The reason I am so sure that you are already doing the basics of my exercise routine is that it is highly unlikely that you are reading this book while shuffling alongside the road in a crunched up posture telling yourself you are lengthening your life by jogging.
There is only one circumstance I can conceive where you should not start my program NOW. If you are reading this book inside a bookstore and the sales assistant is glaring at you then you first need to buy the book NOW.
Obviously there are some ways that are better than others to start the program.
I would recommend that you go to your favourite chair with a glass of whiskey or beer (leave the wine and the water for the joggers – they deserve it.)
If you have started to read the book in the morning and you feel that having a whiskey or beer is going to be frowned upon by your spouse you have three options:
Explain to her that you have started a new exercise routine which involves not feeling guilty about what you drink. To demonstrate that you are serious you don’t care what you drink in the morning because if it is good for you after noon, then it has to be good for you before noon. Tell her/him that in due course she/he will notice you have a much more pleasant don’t care attitude to life, you won’t even care that she/he is overweight. Start to prepare her/him for the new you.
Wait until after noon.
Divorce your spouse. She/he is obviously not willing to take the journey towards being a pleasanter person with you.
If you can then take the book outside so you can continuously remind yourself about what nature is about. You will find this inspirational since the whole concept of this exercise program is built around being natural.
If you do go outside in your own garden then before you read further have a look around and identify a place where you can build a private corner with a chair on which you can contemplate nature. Think of how this can be enhanced with a few shrubs that require low maintenance and which brings nature closer to you and provide some privacy for you to drink your whiskey or beer in. Dream about this place for a while before you start to read my book. You will find this inspirational.
Having thought about this place make it your BIG DREAM. You will see that much of the exercise program is based on you having BIG DREAMS for yourself and about yourself.
Now that you have your first BIG DREAM think about who will build your dream: your gardener? Your Wife (unlikely, but some people are lucky)? Your children (less likely)? If you can, then settle on the gardener. Only if you are a real handyman should you decide to do this yourself – and this is another basic belief about my exercise program: don’t get roped into doing things you don’t enjoy and therefore things you are not good at.
So now you know when to start. In case you fell asleep while dreaming of building your own exercise space in the corner of your garden, with a comfortable chair and a fridge for your whiskey and beer and shrubs for privacy, let me repeat: START NOW.
Unlike other programs suggesting that you ‘start now’ and you will feel the benefits in three months time after a lot of pain and deprivation, I can guarantee you that if you start my program now, you will feel the benefits NOW.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Lucky 6: Black Racism
BLACK RACISM
We have a holiday apartment in Plettenberg Bay on the south coast of the Cape.
The entrance to the town’s supermarket leads directly onto the parking area. The parking area is littered with street-children. I don’t use the word street-urchins because it is one of those euphemisms of the English language that implies beauty where there is no beauty to be implied.
As well as the street children there is also a collection of the local coloured population hanging around, often drunk – mainly because the local liqour store also faces onto this parking area.
The street children make money of the holidaymakers that shop here in two ways:
1. When you come out of the store they will offer to push your trolley to the car and unpack it for you, in return for a gratuity (tip);
2. When you have pushed your shopping cart to the car and unpacked they will appear and offer to return the empty cart to the store – 10 meters away – for a gratuity.
Not unexpectedly the latter option is the one that most of them prefer – it involves less actual work, and generally gets the same pecuniary reward as one gets for the first option, which involves work.
I went shopping, and came out with two trolleys. Charl and Lucky having accompanied me, I asked them to push the trolleys.
As I was unpacking the trolleys a drunken coloured man came to me and confided that I should in future not allow Lucky to push my trolley because “he is a known criminal in the area, and the police were there just that morning trying to find him.”
Since we had just arrived in Plettenberg Bay I knew that even if Lucky (age 8) was a known criminal, he could not have committed his crimes in Plettenberg Bay. So I invited my new confidant to accompany me to the police station where we will deliver Lucky to justice.
He declined this offer, but not before he again advised me not to have any further dealings with criminal types like Lucky.
As it turned out he viewed the parking area as his franchise. All the street children that ‘worked’ the area had to pay him a hefty commission on their earnings. He believed that Lucky was an outsider trying to move into the territory.
Lucky was standing next to me. He was born with naturally large round white eyes. These were growing larger and rounder as he heard himself being accused of being a major criminal, being sought be the police and then me, whom he trusted, offering to deliver him to the police.
The rest of our stay in Plettenberg Bay became a nightmare for Lucky. The street-children gangs started to terrorize him. Where-ever he appeared alone on the streets he could be sure of black street-children shoving him and trying to provoke fights – and fighting is something that Lucky is ill equipped for.
Racism is not skin colour related. Racism extends between self-perceived classes.
Lucky certainly came from much worse conditions than what the street children found themselves in. But Lucky found himself now living in much better conditions. He was living the life of a well to do white child.
There was no charity to be found in this by these street children. In fact, there was absolute jealousy. A jealousy that does not extend to white children. It was natural, and ‘even’ right for white children to live in the luxury that Lucky was living in. But they perceived it to be wrong that a black child should live in that luxury.
This might be where the whole ‘New South Africa’ will break down.
The politicians like to talk about the new deal for the masses. But, in effect they are the people that gain from the whole new deal. As far as the ‘new deal’ for the masses are concerned the politicians are first in the queue, and having satisfied their needs the rest gets distributed to the masses.
Politicians labour under the mistaken belief that if they can show the masses how blacks (saying the masses, but meaning themselves personally) have achieved things, then this will satisfy the masses.
Everybody looks at life only from a personal perspective, never from the view of ‘the masses’. Even if you are part of the masses.
ADDED in 2009: I wrote this mid 1990. With the benefit of hindsight I can see that what I predicted did come to pass. A super-wealthy black class arose from the ashes of apartheid. This was achieved by a well conceived Black Economic empowerment program of the government. Unfortunately this did benefit only a small portion.
When Bishop Tutu criticised the program for not benefiting the masses the Black Business Forum was the first to criticise him. Obviously these were the beneficiaries of the program as it was implemented, they did not really want everybody to benefit.
The government extended the program titling it Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE). There is a lot of evidence that this is working much better.
The way that the implementation of this program is to work in the future is part of the debate for the coming election, and it will be interesting to see how it is implemented in the future.
Personally I see a lot of evidence that after 15 years of government by the ANC that there is a much greater interest in merit promotions rather than skin colour promotions. The accent shifting to creating situations where black people are in a situation where they can compete on merit in the job market.
We have a holiday apartment in Plettenberg Bay on the south coast of the Cape.
The entrance to the town’s supermarket leads directly onto the parking area. The parking area is littered with street-children. I don’t use the word street-urchins because it is one of those euphemisms of the English language that implies beauty where there is no beauty to be implied.
As well as the street children there is also a collection of the local coloured population hanging around, often drunk – mainly because the local liqour store also faces onto this parking area.
The street children make money of the holidaymakers that shop here in two ways:
1. When you come out of the store they will offer to push your trolley to the car and unpack it for you, in return for a gratuity (tip);
2. When you have pushed your shopping cart to the car and unpacked they will appear and offer to return the empty cart to the store – 10 meters away – for a gratuity.
Not unexpectedly the latter option is the one that most of them prefer – it involves less actual work, and generally gets the same pecuniary reward as one gets for the first option, which involves work.
I went shopping, and came out with two trolleys. Charl and Lucky having accompanied me, I asked them to push the trolleys.
As I was unpacking the trolleys a drunken coloured man came to me and confided that I should in future not allow Lucky to push my trolley because “he is a known criminal in the area, and the police were there just that morning trying to find him.”
Since we had just arrived in Plettenberg Bay I knew that even if Lucky (age 8) was a known criminal, he could not have committed his crimes in Plettenberg Bay. So I invited my new confidant to accompany me to the police station where we will deliver Lucky to justice.
He declined this offer, but not before he again advised me not to have any further dealings with criminal types like Lucky.
As it turned out he viewed the parking area as his franchise. All the street children that ‘worked’ the area had to pay him a hefty commission on their earnings. He believed that Lucky was an outsider trying to move into the territory.
Lucky was standing next to me. He was born with naturally large round white eyes. These were growing larger and rounder as he heard himself being accused of being a major criminal, being sought be the police and then me, whom he trusted, offering to deliver him to the police.
The rest of our stay in Plettenberg Bay became a nightmare for Lucky. The street-children gangs started to terrorize him. Where-ever he appeared alone on the streets he could be sure of black street-children shoving him and trying to provoke fights – and fighting is something that Lucky is ill equipped for.
Racism is not skin colour related. Racism extends between self-perceived classes.
Lucky certainly came from much worse conditions than what the street children found themselves in. But Lucky found himself now living in much better conditions. He was living the life of a well to do white child.
There was no charity to be found in this by these street children. In fact, there was absolute jealousy. A jealousy that does not extend to white children. It was natural, and ‘even’ right for white children to live in the luxury that Lucky was living in. But they perceived it to be wrong that a black child should live in that luxury.
This might be where the whole ‘New South Africa’ will break down.
The politicians like to talk about the new deal for the masses. But, in effect they are the people that gain from the whole new deal. As far as the ‘new deal’ for the masses are concerned the politicians are first in the queue, and having satisfied their needs the rest gets distributed to the masses.
Politicians labour under the mistaken belief that if they can show the masses how blacks (saying the masses, but meaning themselves personally) have achieved things, then this will satisfy the masses.
Everybody looks at life only from a personal perspective, never from the view of ‘the masses’. Even if you are part of the masses.
ADDED in 2009: I wrote this mid 1990. With the benefit of hindsight I can see that what I predicted did come to pass. A super-wealthy black class arose from the ashes of apartheid. This was achieved by a well conceived Black Economic empowerment program of the government. Unfortunately this did benefit only a small portion.
When Bishop Tutu criticised the program for not benefiting the masses the Black Business Forum was the first to criticise him. Obviously these were the beneficiaries of the program as it was implemented, they did not really want everybody to benefit.
The government extended the program titling it Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE). There is a lot of evidence that this is working much better.
The way that the implementation of this program is to work in the future is part of the debate for the coming election, and it will be interesting to see how it is implemented in the future.
Personally I see a lot of evidence that after 15 years of government by the ANC that there is a much greater interest in merit promotions rather than skin colour promotions. The accent shifting to creating situations where black people are in a situation where they can compete on merit in the job market.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Exercise 2 - The benefits
All books on exercise programs try to sell their unique brand of exercise by listing its benefits. Mostly these are that you will probably never die if you follow their advice, or that sexy men and/or women will swoon around your body. Most even propagate both benefits.
The fact is that their programs will change your body shape. Either you are going to look scrunched up, dehydrated, like a jogger; or you are going to look like the bouncer at the local strip joint. The best alternative would be to look like the bouncer because then you might suddenly get a few more gay friends, the joggers just get no friends other than other scrunched up dehydrated joggers.
In fact, I think some of the female bouncers at my local strip joint looks rather attractive, and so do their lady friends.
So here is a list of benefits you will get with this program:
1. You can sleep later in the morning.
2. You can come home in the evening and have a beer rather than go running pointlessly around the neighborhood.
3. Your disposition will improve, from day one. You will not be walking around stressing that you did not get your exercise yesterday.
4. It will be as if a load is dropped from your shoulders, immediately.
5. You will have more time during every day to do things that you really enjoy. And if you do not then this is because you are already addicted to the heroin high. Yes, you are a druggy and the only cure is rehabilitation.
6. You will save a lot of money you wasted on special orthopedic designed shoes that you then submit to strenuous wear that no shoes, or feet, were designed to endure (marathons).
7. You won’t feel guilty when you drive around in your car.
8. You will probably start to enjoy nature around you the way nature was intended to be appreciated.
9. You will find new friends, and will discover a different dimension in your existing friends: those that are serious joggers you will now discover are very shallow people with little interest in the important things in life, those that are not joggers are interesting and diverse people.
10. You will discover your couch and television. You paid a lot of money for them, and before you start this program you probably felt guilty about using them.
11. Your shoulders will straighten, you won’t slouch, your legs will stop cramping, and you will be taking deeper breaths with every day you are on my exercise program.
12. You will stop feeling superior to other people, so they will start to like you. Nature in tended us to be part of the tribe.
13. You will stop feeling guilty about the food you eat. After all, nature evolved in a way that it supplies is with a great variety of food. We evolved in a way that we have the means to appreciate different types of food because they are good for us.
14. You might even start to accept that cigarette smokers are not drug addicts intent on killing you slowly using the weapon of mass destruction called secondary smoking, but people enjoying their drug the way you used to enjoy your heroin addiction.
15. Your spouse might even start to love the new improved you – this is seldom an immediate benefit because there will be a lot of baggage you need to get rid of. (Like all the time you did not spend at home when you are out jogging, cycling and then when you were at home you wasted time recovering rather than giving her attention). But, it will come in due course.
16. You can start my exercise program immediately without investing in any expensive equipment other than my book. And, what the hell, if you are reading it then you already spent the money.
17. You will be much less focused on your own body and ways of improving it.
THERE ARE MANY OTHER BENEFITS BUT I AM SURE YOU CAN THINK OF SOME YOURSELF.
PLEASE MAIL ME YOUR THOUGHTS ON THESE BENEFITS.
The fact is that their programs will change your body shape. Either you are going to look scrunched up, dehydrated, like a jogger; or you are going to look like the bouncer at the local strip joint. The best alternative would be to look like the bouncer because then you might suddenly get a few more gay friends, the joggers just get no friends other than other scrunched up dehydrated joggers.
In fact, I think some of the female bouncers at my local strip joint looks rather attractive, and so do their lady friends.
So here is a list of benefits you will get with this program:
1. You can sleep later in the morning.
2. You can come home in the evening and have a beer rather than go running pointlessly around the neighborhood.
3. Your disposition will improve, from day one. You will not be walking around stressing that you did not get your exercise yesterday.
4. It will be as if a load is dropped from your shoulders, immediately.
5. You will have more time during every day to do things that you really enjoy. And if you do not then this is because you are already addicted to the heroin high. Yes, you are a druggy and the only cure is rehabilitation.
6. You will save a lot of money you wasted on special orthopedic designed shoes that you then submit to strenuous wear that no shoes, or feet, were designed to endure (marathons).
7. You won’t feel guilty when you drive around in your car.
8. You will probably start to enjoy nature around you the way nature was intended to be appreciated.
9. You will find new friends, and will discover a different dimension in your existing friends: those that are serious joggers you will now discover are very shallow people with little interest in the important things in life, those that are not joggers are interesting and diverse people.
10. You will discover your couch and television. You paid a lot of money for them, and before you start this program you probably felt guilty about using them.
11. Your shoulders will straighten, you won’t slouch, your legs will stop cramping, and you will be taking deeper breaths with every day you are on my exercise program.
12. You will stop feeling superior to other people, so they will start to like you. Nature in tended us to be part of the tribe.
13. You will stop feeling guilty about the food you eat. After all, nature evolved in a way that it supplies is with a great variety of food. We evolved in a way that we have the means to appreciate different types of food because they are good for us.
14. You might even start to accept that cigarette smokers are not drug addicts intent on killing you slowly using the weapon of mass destruction called secondary smoking, but people enjoying their drug the way you used to enjoy your heroin addiction.
15. Your spouse might even start to love the new improved you – this is seldom an immediate benefit because there will be a lot of baggage you need to get rid of. (Like all the time you did not spend at home when you are out jogging, cycling and then when you were at home you wasted time recovering rather than giving her attention). But, it will come in due course.
16. You can start my exercise program immediately without investing in any expensive equipment other than my book. And, what the hell, if you are reading it then you already spent the money.
17. You will be much less focused on your own body and ways of improving it.
THERE ARE MANY OTHER BENEFITS BUT I AM SURE YOU CAN THINK OF SOME YOURSELF.
PLEASE MAIL ME YOUR THOUGHTS ON THESE BENEFITS.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Exercise 1 - Introducing The Program
Exercise like a Lion or Springbok Program
I have spent most of my life studying exercise. Like any good coach I have done this largely by observation from the side-line, and like any good coach I have a lot of wisdom I can depart to the players (or even the other people on the sideline). A lot of what I have learned I learned from nature.
The main lesson I have learned from the experts is: NOT ALL FORMS OF EXERCISE IS EQUALY GOOD FOR YOU. The corollary to this fact is that: EVERY FORM OF EXERCISE IS IN SOME WAY BAD FOR YOU!
I recently visited the UCT Sport Science Institute which is located next to the famous Newlands rugby field in Cape Town. It is a four story building with a huge swimming pool in the ground floor, and the SA Rugby Board’s offices occupying half of the top story.
Guess what occupies the whole 1st floor? Suites for a large number of medical specialists: Knee Surgeon, Shoulder Surgeon, Heart Surgeon, etc.
It is a fact that the supply side of the market will follow the demand side. In short, Al Capone robbed banks because that is where the money is. Obviously these surgeons have figured out where the market for there services are: The sports Science Institute.
This is where Prof. Knokes study what happens to people during exercise by pushing people to do all kinds of exercise that are supposed to be healthy for them. He is often interviewed on TV and quoted in magazines on the topic of how healthy exercise is, but these never mention that a whole flock of surgeons has collected around his institute.
As someone standing next to the sideline when massive numbers of people run marathons I am constantly amazed by the number of heart-attacks that are reported after the event. None of these heart attacks occurred among the spectators, and very few among the couch-potatoes watching the event on TV drinking beer, despite the fact that the health fanatics predict that the couch potatoes are the ones prone to heart attacks.
I have heard that one of the benefits of regular exercise is that should one have to run to catch a bus or train one will not keel over with a heart attack. As a youngster this was an impressive argument, and I did occasionally jog, so that I won’t get a heart attack running after a departing train. Fortunately I then realized that I never have to run to catch a bus or trains, one can always wait for the next one.
In London there are some x million people using the underground. Most of them do not look to me like they have ever run a marathon. I am yet to see dead bodies lying strewn out on the platform while the loudspeaker system says: “Mind the Gap”.
I am convinced that there are more people dying of heart-attacks while they are exercising so that they won’t get a heart attack when they try to catch the train, than what there are people getting heart attacks when they occasionally try to catch a departing train.
I am also convinced that there are more people getting damaged while playing rugby than what there are getting hurt watching rugby (at the field or in front of the television). Obviously I am talking proportionately – there are more people watching than what there are playing so the odd death or injury among a spectator is to be expected. It is the players that end up in the surgeons’ suites at the UCT Sport Sciences Institute.
It is not the intention of this book to propagate that people should stop playing rugby. I love to watch rugby and for me to be able to watch rugby one needs people that play rugby. It is just that there are many people like me that prefer others to be the hurtee than to be the hurted themselves, and who love to watch sports on television where other people are hurting other people.
The form of exercise that I think should be legally banned is jogging. It is number one on the list of bad things to do to you. Unfortunately the training for most sports involves getting fit, and this is mostly seen to be best done by jogging.
We can rest assured that jogging will never be banned. Politicians that smoke will ban smoking, but politicians that do not jog will not ban jogging. The reason is that there is too much vested interest involved (read MONEY). All forms of sport has become big time money makers, and no-one will attempt to ban the sports, and, as I said, to practice the sport always involves jogging for fitness.
Imagine all the money that will be lost if all the big stadia in the world stands empty, the television channels have nothing but reality shows to broadcast, beer companies cannot sponsor events and use the money to reduce the price of beer, no-one is lying on the couch drinking beer in any case, etc. Imagine the loss to BA if they cannot fly half the Super 14 teams and their accompanying trainers, physios, bag-handlers etc. between New Zealand, Australia and South Africa for 14 weeks each year!
So jogging will never be banned – it will be a world-wide economic disaster.
There is no-one more self-righteous than a jogger (not even a golf-player). If there are two at the bar one can be assured that at some stage they will introduce the topic of jogging into the conversation. It is not the introduction of the topic, but the self-righteous we-are-superior way they will do it: “How many miles a week are you doing?”.
What they forget is that to be a good jogger one needs to have a body that nature never intended. Throughout nature, and even in mankind’s history, the king always has a well rounded body. The specie of the species that survive through propagation are seldom the scrawny example.
Not only do good joggers start of with the type of body that would have ensured they take no further part in the evolution of human kind, but they then proceed to make a bad job worse.
As a student of jogging I have come to realize that the most important thing about jogging is the way that you carry your upper body – it has very little to do with what you do with your legs.
Firstly you have to hunch your shoulders, pull your neck in as far as possible. Then push your face out a bit, but not so far that you cannot see your toes anymore. Clutch your hands, get them chest high and not move them while you jog. Only once you have this upper-body posture right can you start to worry about what you do with your legs.
You can watch any good jogger and you will see they take ‘the posture’ before they start. If a jogger stands up straight like a normal person, opens their chest so they can get fresh air into it, swings their arms so that their shoulders unwind, they are not true joggers. If they look around at the beautiful scenery that nature provided them taking deep breaths of fresh air, they have not jogged more then once or twice in their life. If they, God-forbid, smile, then this is their first ever jog.
Once an experienced jogger has ‘adopted the position’ they will start shuffling their feet. The idea is to not lift their feet more than 2mm above the ground. A good jogger will rather run around a stone in his path than lift his feet to get over it. It is important to not ‘stride out’ as if you are enjoying a nice walk and getting your lungs filled with fresh air and enjoying it.
Doing this regularly leads to the well known problem of “joggers body”, which is especially noticeable in women. The body actually adapts to this jogging pose even when it is not being used to jog. Women, especially, start to get a hunch-back. Their shoulders sag and since their boobs are attached to their shoulders their boobs sag with their shoulders, as it is being pulled back into their hunch back.
Jogging causes unnatural leg muscles to be used, certainly not the muscles nature intended to make for show-off legs that attract male attention. Female joggers’ legs can easily be recognized: it is the pair that no man is looking at when they are on the beach. In fact the same can be said for the upper-part of her body as well.
With this ‘joggers crawl’ it takes a while before the pain sets in, and then they still have to turn around and jog home. Jogging is not worth while unless one gets to the pain threshold (they call it ‘hitting the wall’) because this is when the heroin is released in the brain. This heroin induced trip is what jogging apparently is all about. So in the period before the heroin is released the jogger goes through extreme pain. This results in them grimacing – which is what one does during an extended period of pain. This grimace becomes a natural feature of a female joggers face.
Again one can recognize a female jogger just by watching how the men ignore her based not only on her funny body but also the grimace on her face. One look at her mouth and you know this is one sour bitch that you are glad someone else married. (Hopefully the self-righteous specimen you met at the bar the night before.)
Serious joggers not only look as if the Juices of Life has been extracted from them, but in many ways the juices of life has been extracted from them. It is a well known medical fact that they struggle to procreate – both the male and the female jogger has problems in this area. This only gets worse the longer they jog, and often the only medical advice is for them to stop jogging for a long time if they hope to procreate.
This is a serious threat to the species.
You might well ask: If they struggle to procreate, why do they consider themselves to be the King of the Jungle? Why they are not bred out of the human race?
The answer is simply that jogging is a modern phenomenon. When I was young my parents did not jog, and did not even think they had to jog. None of their friends were jogging. Early mornings the streets were as nature intended them to be: quite and peaceful, no dogs chasing joggers, cars swerving to avoid joggers, etc. No-one sat in their car worried that the jogger coming past them in the traffic jam might get a heart attack and you will be late for work.
The good news is that it is only because your parents lead a healthy life and did not jog that you are here to read this. If they jogged you might not have been here, or you might have been made artificially by insemination.
This is the theme of my book: jogging is artificial, and I use the word ‘artificial' in its strictest sense as meaning ‘unnatural’.
A much more natural, and healthy, option is offered by nature. This option has been tested over millions of years by a process called Evolution. There is no need to find modern evidence for its benefits such as is being done by scientists at the Sport Science Institute, where the physicians gather to get their patients.
I call this the ‘Lion and Springbok Exercise Program’, based on nature.
This is the first chapter of the second book. You can look at the archives and the chapters for the Lucky book is so indicated, as will the chaapters of this exciting book on how to live healthy like nature intended.
I have spent most of my life studying exercise. Like any good coach I have done this largely by observation from the side-line, and like any good coach I have a lot of wisdom I can depart to the players (or even the other people on the sideline). A lot of what I have learned I learned from nature.
The main lesson I have learned from the experts is: NOT ALL FORMS OF EXERCISE IS EQUALY GOOD FOR YOU. The corollary to this fact is that: EVERY FORM OF EXERCISE IS IN SOME WAY BAD FOR YOU!
I recently visited the UCT Sport Science Institute which is located next to the famous Newlands rugby field in Cape Town. It is a four story building with a huge swimming pool in the ground floor, and the SA Rugby Board’s offices occupying half of the top story.
Guess what occupies the whole 1st floor? Suites for a large number of medical specialists: Knee Surgeon, Shoulder Surgeon, Heart Surgeon, etc.
It is a fact that the supply side of the market will follow the demand side. In short, Al Capone robbed banks because that is where the money is. Obviously these surgeons have figured out where the market for there services are: The sports Science Institute.
This is where Prof. Knokes study what happens to people during exercise by pushing people to do all kinds of exercise that are supposed to be healthy for them. He is often interviewed on TV and quoted in magazines on the topic of how healthy exercise is, but these never mention that a whole flock of surgeons has collected around his institute.
As someone standing next to the sideline when massive numbers of people run marathons I am constantly amazed by the number of heart-attacks that are reported after the event. None of these heart attacks occurred among the spectators, and very few among the couch-potatoes watching the event on TV drinking beer, despite the fact that the health fanatics predict that the couch potatoes are the ones prone to heart attacks.
I have heard that one of the benefits of regular exercise is that should one have to run to catch a bus or train one will not keel over with a heart attack. As a youngster this was an impressive argument, and I did occasionally jog, so that I won’t get a heart attack running after a departing train. Fortunately I then realized that I never have to run to catch a bus or trains, one can always wait for the next one.
In London there are some x million people using the underground. Most of them do not look to me like they have ever run a marathon. I am yet to see dead bodies lying strewn out on the platform while the loudspeaker system says: “Mind the Gap”.
I am convinced that there are more people dying of heart-attacks while they are exercising so that they won’t get a heart attack when they try to catch the train, than what there are people getting heart attacks when they occasionally try to catch a departing train.
I am also convinced that there are more people getting damaged while playing rugby than what there are getting hurt watching rugby (at the field or in front of the television). Obviously I am talking proportionately – there are more people watching than what there are playing so the odd death or injury among a spectator is to be expected. It is the players that end up in the surgeons’ suites at the UCT Sport Sciences Institute.
It is not the intention of this book to propagate that people should stop playing rugby. I love to watch rugby and for me to be able to watch rugby one needs people that play rugby. It is just that there are many people like me that prefer others to be the hurtee than to be the hurted themselves, and who love to watch sports on television where other people are hurting other people.
The form of exercise that I think should be legally banned is jogging. It is number one on the list of bad things to do to you. Unfortunately the training for most sports involves getting fit, and this is mostly seen to be best done by jogging.
We can rest assured that jogging will never be banned. Politicians that smoke will ban smoking, but politicians that do not jog will not ban jogging. The reason is that there is too much vested interest involved (read MONEY). All forms of sport has become big time money makers, and no-one will attempt to ban the sports, and, as I said, to practice the sport always involves jogging for fitness.
Imagine all the money that will be lost if all the big stadia in the world stands empty, the television channels have nothing but reality shows to broadcast, beer companies cannot sponsor events and use the money to reduce the price of beer, no-one is lying on the couch drinking beer in any case, etc. Imagine the loss to BA if they cannot fly half the Super 14 teams and their accompanying trainers, physios, bag-handlers etc. between New Zealand, Australia and South Africa for 14 weeks each year!
So jogging will never be banned – it will be a world-wide economic disaster.
There is no-one more self-righteous than a jogger (not even a golf-player). If there are two at the bar one can be assured that at some stage they will introduce the topic of jogging into the conversation. It is not the introduction of the topic, but the self-righteous we-are-superior way they will do it: “How many miles a week are you doing?”.
What they forget is that to be a good jogger one needs to have a body that nature never intended. Throughout nature, and even in mankind’s history, the king always has a well rounded body. The specie of the species that survive through propagation are seldom the scrawny example.
Not only do good joggers start of with the type of body that would have ensured they take no further part in the evolution of human kind, but they then proceed to make a bad job worse.
As a student of jogging I have come to realize that the most important thing about jogging is the way that you carry your upper body – it has very little to do with what you do with your legs.
Firstly you have to hunch your shoulders, pull your neck in as far as possible. Then push your face out a bit, but not so far that you cannot see your toes anymore. Clutch your hands, get them chest high and not move them while you jog. Only once you have this upper-body posture right can you start to worry about what you do with your legs.
You can watch any good jogger and you will see they take ‘the posture’ before they start. If a jogger stands up straight like a normal person, opens their chest so they can get fresh air into it, swings their arms so that their shoulders unwind, they are not true joggers. If they look around at the beautiful scenery that nature provided them taking deep breaths of fresh air, they have not jogged more then once or twice in their life. If they, God-forbid, smile, then this is their first ever jog.
Once an experienced jogger has ‘adopted the position’ they will start shuffling their feet. The idea is to not lift their feet more than 2mm above the ground. A good jogger will rather run around a stone in his path than lift his feet to get over it. It is important to not ‘stride out’ as if you are enjoying a nice walk and getting your lungs filled with fresh air and enjoying it.
Doing this regularly leads to the well known problem of “joggers body”, which is especially noticeable in women. The body actually adapts to this jogging pose even when it is not being used to jog. Women, especially, start to get a hunch-back. Their shoulders sag and since their boobs are attached to their shoulders their boobs sag with their shoulders, as it is being pulled back into their hunch back.
Jogging causes unnatural leg muscles to be used, certainly not the muscles nature intended to make for show-off legs that attract male attention. Female joggers’ legs can easily be recognized: it is the pair that no man is looking at when they are on the beach. In fact the same can be said for the upper-part of her body as well.
With this ‘joggers crawl’ it takes a while before the pain sets in, and then they still have to turn around and jog home. Jogging is not worth while unless one gets to the pain threshold (they call it ‘hitting the wall’) because this is when the heroin is released in the brain. This heroin induced trip is what jogging apparently is all about. So in the period before the heroin is released the jogger goes through extreme pain. This results in them grimacing – which is what one does during an extended period of pain. This grimace becomes a natural feature of a female joggers face.
Again one can recognize a female jogger just by watching how the men ignore her based not only on her funny body but also the grimace on her face. One look at her mouth and you know this is one sour bitch that you are glad someone else married. (Hopefully the self-righteous specimen you met at the bar the night before.)
Serious joggers not only look as if the Juices of Life has been extracted from them, but in many ways the juices of life has been extracted from them. It is a well known medical fact that they struggle to procreate – both the male and the female jogger has problems in this area. This only gets worse the longer they jog, and often the only medical advice is for them to stop jogging for a long time if they hope to procreate.
This is a serious threat to the species.
You might well ask: If they struggle to procreate, why do they consider themselves to be the King of the Jungle? Why they are not bred out of the human race?
The answer is simply that jogging is a modern phenomenon. When I was young my parents did not jog, and did not even think they had to jog. None of their friends were jogging. Early mornings the streets were as nature intended them to be: quite and peaceful, no dogs chasing joggers, cars swerving to avoid joggers, etc. No-one sat in their car worried that the jogger coming past them in the traffic jam might get a heart attack and you will be late for work.
The good news is that it is only because your parents lead a healthy life and did not jog that you are here to read this. If they jogged you might not have been here, or you might have been made artificially by insemination.
This is the theme of my book: jogging is artificial, and I use the word ‘artificial' in its strictest sense as meaning ‘unnatural’.
A much more natural, and healthy, option is offered by nature. This option has been tested over millions of years by a process called Evolution. There is no need to find modern evidence for its benefits such as is being done by scientists at the Sport Science Institute, where the physicians gather to get their patients.
I call this the ‘Lion and Springbok Exercise Program’, based on nature.
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